


King Thor

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bi-Thor, Bi-Valkyrie, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-01 17:36:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20261926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: [The Russo's fucked up so I'm fixing it. Inspired by a King Thor AU idea in this post: https://sinistercoffin.tumblr.com/post/186796327351/all-i-want-in-life ]





	1. The King of New Asgard

_"Let me take you on a little trip_  
My supersonic ship's at your disposal  
If you feel so inclined. Well alright.  
  
We're gonna travel faster than light  
So do up your overcoat tight  
And you'll go anywhere you want to decide. Well alright."

\- "Supersonic Rocket Ship" by The Kinks

* * *

_Welcome to New Asgard_

"Hey! Valkyrie! How's it goin'...Angry Girl..."

Brunnhilde eyed the new...Banner? Hulk? up and down, and ignored the old nicknames that didn't fit _that_ voice.

"Honestly, it's weirder in person."

Banner shrugged, "Eh...you think that's weird try _being_ it during the first few months. That's weird."

It was Brun's turn to shrug. "I take you're here to see him?"

"Yeah. How bad is he?"

"Oh, not bad at all, sort of."

"Sorta?" Rocket asked.

"Just, you know, follow the booming laughter and you'll find today's court."

Which is what they did. Thor's laughter boomed across the village. Rocket changed his mind about the Asgardians along the way, deciding he liked these "working class" semi-immortals better. The town smelled of the sea, and from somewhere the wafted the scent of roasting meats and other cooking. It didn't take long to find Thor's court. It was a few benches in a small square centered on huge stone block where two burly Asgardians, a dark skinned woman with warrior braids and a weathered ancient with wisps of white hair around his suntanned pate, were locked in an arm wrestling competition. The man was probably five thousand years old if he looked fifty, old ropy muscle straining over his squat frame. The woman was probably Thor's age, or near enough, with the tall powerful build of a born fighter. 

Thor stood between them, half officiating, half cheering on one or the other in turns. The woman was winning, having forced her opponents hand halfway down already. Stone ground to powder under their elbows. Rocket could feel the stones under his feet vibrate, sometimes with Thor's shouts, sometimes when the man lost another half inch.

Thor himself, was every inch a king. Not richly appointed, he was not so crass as to dress better than his people could afford, but the clothes were hand-made, and skillfully crafted. Heavy black wool trousers, thick, tough boots, a thick sweater of red wool strained over his huge frame, which was clearly made even fuller by a thick layer of fat. Over it all a long, heavy coat, dark brown, it's only adornment black silken cuffs and collar with intricate gold threadwork. His beard was gloriously full and thick, braided down the center in a simple pattern. His hair, now as gloriously blonde as it had been when Bruce first met him, was more intricately braided, with silver wires tipped with sapphires holding the braids in place. His false eye was gone too, replaced with a simple leather eye-patch.

Suddenly, with a mighty shout the warrior heaved and slammed her opponents hand to the stone, sending up tiny fragments with a thud that could be felt through the cobblestones of the square. The gathered crowd cheered, none louder than the King himself. The man shook his head ruefully and downed two beers, his own and the one Thor offered him. And when the woman stood Bruce and Rocket realized she was heavily pregnant. She pulled the older man over and kissed the top of his bald head before walking off with him, arm in arm.

"Boys!" Thor boomed and rushed over, embracing them each in turn. "Welcome to New Asgard! Have a beer. The party starts in a couple hours but there's nothing wrong with getting started a little early."

He led them over to a table, looked at it, and then shifted it so one end was near a flat topped, which Bruce sat on, waving away a beer, while Rocket accepted one in a mug that was nearly as big as he was. 

"So what was that all about?" Asked Rocket, motioning towards the apparent couple that'd been arm wrestling a moment ago.

"Ah, minor marital dispute, couldn't agree on the baby's name. I wanted to mash to the two names together but at least they both agreed that would be terrible. So we compromised." He grinned mischievously, "Now, what have you boys been up to?"

"We came be-" Bruce started.

"Ah!" Thor interrupted, "No new business until tomorrow. The world's not going to fall to pieces if you wait a day, will it?"

"Well...no. You might say we've got plenty of time." Bruce answered honestly.

"Good! Then first lets catch up."

Bruce explained the process he'd used to merge with Hulk. Thor, always ready with surprising depths of knowledge, asked all the right questions to keep him engaged. Rocket told of his adventures with Nebula, the story of the garbage scow now somehow much funnier with the jovial king listening, his laughter at the peak of the story rolling across the village.

"I gotta say man, you look a lot better than I expected. I didn't think you humie-types liked fat guys." Rocket said, a little tipsy after finishing most of his beer. "I sorta thought you might be...wallowing. Especially after...ya know..."

If a shadow passed across Thor's features, it was quickly banished by a bright smile. He winked a a pair of young Asgardians, a man and woman probably of age with him, watching from a distance. The pair blushed and hurried on, giggling. 

"Ah, well the throne is a hard chair and the body grows it's own cushions, regular feasting helps, of course." Thor said with a smirk, "As as for wallowing...honestly I did for the first year. Until Brunnhilde ripped my disgusting little cabin apart and thrashed me with one of the logs before throwing me off the end of the pier." He jerked a thumb towards the ocean. "She made me feel real shame that night, told me my people needed their king. So I quite the drink and started pulling myself together. Everyone helped, of course, they made me this coat in place of a crown." His eyes gleamed with pride as he pointed out the fine workmanship and intricate gold threads, "Even gave me a boat! I take my shifts fishing with a small crew now. All sustainable practices of course, I've been learning a great deal about your world's ecology."

As they'd talked, the Asgardians had been setting up long tables, an outdoor bar, and more. Clearly some celebration was about to happen.

"Come, drink and feast!' Thor encouraged them as people began arriving.

"What's the occasion?" Rocket asked.

"'Tis the first of **Walpurgis**, I adopted it from the locals it's very popular now. It's dedicated to their idea of my Father, you know. Nine nights of festivities."

Then he was off into the crowds, greeting people, handing out drinks, a king among his people.

"I dunno..." Rocket said skeptically.

"Yeah, he's...stable but..." Bruce shrugged.

"It's not real. Not _really_ real."

"We have a saying, 'Fake it 'til you make it.'. He's doing a good job faking it."

"Still gotta have 'im."

"Yeah, but tomorrow."

"Sure. Tomorrow, be stupid to turn down an excuse to party. Rude, even."

"And you're a paragon of decorum, is that is?"

"Yeah, when I wanna be."

The feast went long into the night. There were toasts, games, a great deal of food even for Bruce's immense appetite, three short fights and a number of effigies "hung" in honor of the All Father. A family carried a drunken, stuffed, and sleeping Rocket to their home, promising to take care of him. Bruce saw Thor going back to his cabin, the pair from earlier trailing after, both grinning, when he felt a friendly slap on his arm.

"Hey big guy." Said Brun with a sultry grin, a stocky brunette woman on her arm, head on Brun's shoulder, smiling at him.

"Hey Brun." She'd insisted he use the nickname the rest of the village did. A new start for old friends, she'd called it. "Who's your friend? We didn't meet earlier."

"This is my girlfriend Torhild. Torhild, this is Bruce.The one his majesty and I escaped Sakaar with."

"Ahh~ you fought the wolf." Torhild said with a knowing smile. "Impressive."

"Sorta." Bruce admitted.

"Come stay at our place. We've got plenty of room." Brun invited.

"Nice big bed." Added Torhild.

Bruce stared for a moment. "Are you...uh...inviting..."

"Inviting you to do only what your comfortable with. But we're big strong girls, we can handle anything. I've seen what you got so I know."

"If it doesn't work, no worries, we can just sleep." Torhild said kindly.

Bruce thought about it. It wasn't that he wasn't interested. Torhild was beautiful and seemed kind. Brun was gorgeous and powerful and he'd liked her from the beginning. But it wasn't an idea he'd been living with for the past five years. He'd never processed it. _To hell with it_, he finally thought, _this plan could blow up the universe. There's no real downside to saying yes._

"Sure," he said finally, "I'd love to give it a try."

And he was led off.

* * *

The next morning Bruce stepped out of Brun's rather large cabin, she'd built it herself, and stretched. 

"He'll be up." Brun said behind him, lounging against the doorway in a bathrobe, "He's very good about that, keeping a schedule even when he doesn't have to."

"Good." He started to go and turned, "And...thanks. You know it was really great."

She smirked, "It's not all charity, we had a damn good time too. You're welcome back any time."

"Thanks. If this...thing works out, I might just do that."

"Do what?"

"Wha- uh...I meant, I might- I want to- that is-"

She laughed and shooed him away, "I know what you meant. Now go and recruit the King for your suicide mission or whatever. Let me know if you need another sword or hundred, meanwhile I'll keep things running here."

"Right." And he strode off down the path towards the village. He'd collect Rocket first.

He found Rocket at a breakfast table, next to three children and a pair of mothers who watched him eat with gentle smiles.

"Can you believe 'dis place?" Rocket asked around a mouthful of waffles, "These people party half the night, then just carry you home and feed you in the morning! I could learn to like it here."

"There's a lot of hard work in between you know."

"Well you know I'm no fan of hard work. Still," he stuffed the last of his waffles into his mouth, "Mi'be _sumfin_ to'it." He swallowed. "Time to see the king?"

"Time to see the king."

Rocket finished his orange juice, uncharacteristically allowed the whole family to say goodbye by petting and hugging him, and followed Bruce towards the King's quarters.

"Ya sure he'll be up? When I saw 'em before I passed out, looked like he was about to have a really good night."

"Brun said he'd be up."

"Oh it's "Brun" now is it?" Rocket sniffed at him, and gave a sinister chuckle, "Hehe, of course it is. Smells like _you_ had a pretty good night too. So of course she's "Brun" now."

Bruce opened his mouth to deny it, and shook his head. Why should he? He didn't need to be modest for Brun. She wouldn't expect him to be modest, and would probably laugh at him if he tried to be.

"It was a pretty surprising night. Some really _nice_ surprises."

"Heh. Well good for both of yas." He sniffed, "All three of yas. Nice to see even if this plan fails without destroying all of reality, people can still get on with their lives."

"Didn't take _you _for the optimistic type."

"Bad habit. I hang out with Nebula, _someone's_ gotta be a least a little bit optimistic between the two of us."

"It'll work. Tony did the math, and Tony's math is never wrong."

"If you say so, you didn't see the patch job he did on the Milano."

"It was his first time working on alien tech."

"Maybe. I still think I coulda' got about eighty hours outta that wreck. Anyway, looks like we're here."

They entered one of the few new buildings in the village. A big building, high-peaked, with intricately carved posts and other decoration. Inside was a long, wide room with tables and, incongruously, couches arranged around several big TV's with game consoles. On one, Bruce recognized Korg and Miek playing...something Bruce didn't recognize. At a table behind that couch, two Asgardians, Bruce recognized the pair he'd seen leaving with Thor, were being served breakfast by Thor himself. At the end of the huge hall was a simple throne, with Stormbreaker mounted above it.

"Boys! Welcome to my home and my court, at least when the weather's bad."

"So, about-"

"Thor, Thor!" Korg called suddenly, "He's back again, that kid on the TV just called me a dickhead."

Thor rolled his eyes and sighed, "Noobmaster."

"Yeah, Noobmaster69."

"Give me that." Thor snatched the headset from Korg and held it to his ear. "Hey, Noobmaster, yeah it's Thor. What the hell? Nono, listen, you've never talked to me like that, so why is it ok to be mean to my friends? Uh-huh...uh-huh...no I get it it's been a rough five years, but are you sure you want to talk all this out in the public channel?" He chuckled, "Don't worry about it. Tell you what, later, you and me, Wolfenstein New Blood, we'll slaughter Nazis and talk. I've got some King stuff to take care of at the moment so I'll PM you on Discord later. Now take care, and _be nice_." He handed the headset back to Korg.

"Thanks. I thought you'd wanna talk to him."

"He's not bad, not like RealThor88." Everyone groaned while Rocket and Bruce stared in confusion. "That guy's the worst."

"He's a grown adult," Kork complained, "Where's he get off making kids cry on Fortnite like that?" Miek chittered something, "Right? Just awful."

"Anyway, what's up?" asked Thor, turning back to Bruce.

"There's a mission, we need you."

"Nahh~ you're all doing fine. Carol's out there if you really need her. What kind of problem could you need me for? Mediation maybe? Turns out I'm not half bad at diplomacy."

"It's...more of a Thanos kind of problem."

The room went quiet. Thor's expression turned cold.

"I _killed_ Thanos, in case you forgot." He said, striding up to his throne and sitting down, affecting a sort of regally casual attitude. "There _are_ no more Thanos problems." Stormbreaker hummed and sparked faintly as he spat the name.

"Except for one." Rocket said, "Kind of a big one."

"What's done is done, the stones are gone."

"Not in the past they aren't." Bruce countered. "We've got a way, Tony says it'll work."

"Time travel." Rocket added.

"This is ridiculous. You cannot," His voice was rising to a thundering shout as he stood from his throne, "come in here and PRESENT THESE RIDICULOUS NOTIONS OF UNDOING FATE!" The hall shook with his voice, sparks crawled along Stormbreaker, and his eye glowed white for a moment. 

"We're not undoing the past, we're gonna bring 'em back to right now. Everything that's new, stays new."

"Stark says it'll work. I can't do the math but...the device looks sound to me." Rocket added.

"Oh, Stark's math says it will work?" Asked Thor with a dark chuckle. "Get out."

"Listen-" Bruce started.

_ **"I SAID GET OUT!"** _

* * *

When the doors closed behind Rocket and Banner, Thor turned and stalked out of the hall. "I need a drink."

Brunnhilde found him in the kitchen, chugging a quart of orange juice. 

"I have concerns."

"How much did you hear?"

"Half the country heard you tossing your friends out of your hall. Svala told me the rest. You frightened Miek, he laid a gallon of eggs once you were out of the room, poor thing."

"I'll apologize to him."

"And after that, apologize to Bruce and Rocket."

"I will."

"And then go with them."

Thor sighed and sat down heavily, shoulders sagging. "Not you too."

"Anyone else would tell you the same."

"Not _me_."

"Yes you would so don't lie. What are you so bloody afraid of?"

Thor was quiet for a moment. "I'm afraid if I fail again I'll break for good this time."

"Got news for you, Thor, you're already broken. So am I, and so is every Asgardian in this village, and so is every damned being in this universe. That's what Thanos did, he cracked every soul in existence. If you crack some more, that's fine, it's a feature now, come back here, play the jovial king, and get a therapist or something."

"Not getting a lot of sympathy here."

"Sympathy's what I named that log I beat you with four years ago."

"Oh, well maybe it's overrated then."

"You've done a real good job faking it lately. Fake it some more. Pretend you believe it'll work. Because you and I both know if you don't even try, you'll fall apart."

Thor sighed, then stood and squared his shoulders. "Fine. Maybe if I fake it really well, it'll even fake-work."

"That's the spirit."

"I'd better go make some fake-apologies."

"Do that."

* * *

Bruce and Rocket sat on the steps leading up to Thor's hall.

"So now what?"

Bruce shrugged, "Stick around and try to change his mind?"

Suddenly the doors of the hall banged open and Thor strode out. "You'll stay for the festival. Then we will go."

Rocket and Bruce looked at each other. "Ok."


	2. The King and the Heist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which: The time heist kicks off. Thor is casually intelligent.

"Hey, what happened to that eye I gave ya?"

"Hmm?" Thor looked up from the tablet he was studying. "Oh! Here." He tossed Rocket the prosthetic eye. "Stopped working, probably not compatible with Asgardian physiology. Besides, I don't really need it."

Rocket stared at the eye in his hand, like it would bit him.

"What's wrong?" Thor asked.

"Feels wrong somehow....." Rocket mused, but didn't continued because the briefing was starting.

When it was Thor's turn he stood and strode purposefully to the front of the room.

"Now, first, a small correction; it should be pointed out that the Infinity Stones are not, in fact, stones. That is a common translation error. In common Earth English, it would be more accurate to refer to them as collapsed super-cosmic meta-quantum singularities."

"Man, _how_ did I know "quantum" words were gonna figure into this?" Scott complained.

"Probably because you're far more intelligent than most people give you credit for, Scott." Thor replied, and smirked at Scott's pleased smile.

"They still _look_ like stones though." Rhodey pointed out.

"Oh?" Thor tapped his tablet and a picture of the Aether, also known as Reality Stone, appeared, flowing back and forth across the screen. "The so-called Reality Stone, known to my people as the Aether. Does that look like a stone to you?"

"Fair point." Rhodey conceded.

"Even so, they all manifested in a crystalline structure once attached to the Infinity Gauntlet." Thor continued. "This is of course due to the fractal nested nature of sub-atomic reality. In simple terms, at least. And this makes sense when you know that the stones are not just foci of great power, they are in fact manifestations of fundamental cosmic forces of the universe. You can no more destroy them than you can destroy the entirety of Existence itself. Thanos may have thought he destroyed them, but in fact he merely dispersed their physical forms. In a couple billion Earth years, they would have started turning up again."

"Wait, did Thanos know this?" Tony asked.

"No, because Thanos was an idiot. He did not understand Real Cosmic Theory any better than he understood the fundamentals of Terrestrial Ecology. His random selection of half of all living things wiped out dozens of species here on Earth and and estimated many hundreds of thousands across the Galaxy."

"Seriously?" Bruce asked in surprise. "I knew about the effects here, but that happened everywhere?"

"Oh yeah," Nat said, "Thor asked Carol to get ecological reports from any functional governments or scientific organizations she could and compiled an estimate. Some of those species weren't even endangered until the snap reduced their populations below sustainable levels."

"It's been very important to me for the past few years to demonstrate that Thanos was, in fact, very stupid." Thor said.

"We all enjoy solid proof that Thanos was irredeemably stupid," Steve said, "But if we could get on with the briefing?"

"Of course." Thor said, "Now most of you may recall the Convergence incident..."

* * *

Thor stood on the balcony outside the mess area, sipping at a hot mug of tea, watching the moon set. The rest of the team was either talking around the table, or gone off to be alone. Nebula in particular was prone to long, lonely walks. Though, Thor had noticed sometimes Tony joined her. That was good, she needed friends beyond Rocket's acerbic company. She and Rhodey seemed to have a connection too. 

"Hey." Steve said, stepping up beside him.

Thor smelled the coffee in his mug. He'd read about the affection World War II troops had developed for coffee. He suspected Steve's connection to it was pure nostalgia. His own tea was one his mother had favored, a miraculous thing in the form of seeds one Asgardian had happened to grab during the evacuation, and then survived Thanos' attack and his later snap, and then managed to grow in Earth's soil.

"A fine evening." Thor commented.

Steve nodded, "Yeah." he breathed the crisp air for a moment. "How've you been? We haven't really been keeping up so..."

"Quite well." Thor replied, "Rough first year but...I moved on."

"I keep telling people to do that. But the first chance I get to use time travel to undo it all..."

Thor laughed. "We will need to get the world prepared. Suddenly doubling the population after five years without them, could lead to chaos."

"I was thinking about that, we might approach Wakanda about it. And I'm betting Tony and Pepper have already started on some plans to."

Thor nodded. "So...why haven't you moved on?"

"What? I have, or I was until-"

"You weren't. If you were, Natasha would have a few more smile lines and a few less worry lines due to Clint's behavior."

"Nat and I-"

"Care about each other very deeply. It is not wise to lie to a king, Steve." Thor warned, but smiled at his friend. "I may have one eye, but my sight is still very good."

"Tony keeps telling me the same thing, right after he tells me to go back to therapy."

"Not telling Natasha how you feel, not going to therapy. Steve, I do not think this is a good mindset to be entering into a time-travel mission with."

"It's a little late to start now, isn't it?"

"We have weeks of work ahead of us. Tony has barely begun to build his machine, even with fabrication assistance from the Wakandans, it will be summer before we are ready."

Steve took a deep breath and sighed, "Ok. Yeah. I don't suppose you know where..."

Thor pointed to a bench on the edge of the light spilling from the windows, it looked out to the lake next to the base.

"Right." And Steve hurried off.

A short while later, as Steve was approaching Nat, later a figure emerged from the shadows and stood next to Thor.

"Thanks." said Clint.

"You're certain she won't mind out meddling?" Thor asked.

"Psh, it's her idea." Clint replied, "She's been waiting for him to actually move the hell on for at least two years. At least that's what she told me. Which was a big surprise. Apparently sharing our feelings is a thing this team does now."

"Might have saved a lot of trouble if we'd started a few years ago." Thor commented.

"Yeah well...Nat played therapist to me after she picked me up. I'm going to a professional in a couple days, at least get my head right for this mission. Anyway, she's been kinda fed up with his reluctance so this little get-together made for a good opportunity to give him a kick in the pants."

"All for the best, I should think."

"Hope so." Clint stared as the figures of Nat and Steve walked off together, "Really nice to have some hope again, at least."


End file.
